1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to holders for beverage containers for use in vehicles and more particularly to such a holder with flexible, interconnectable arms encircling the container and a base selectively securable to either a carpeted or smooth rigid surface.
2. Background and Description of Prior Art
Holders for beverage containers of various sorts have long been known and have increased substantially in their sophistication during the course of their development, until at the present time various types of beverage holders are readily distinguishable by reason of their specialized features that adapt them for particular uses. One class of such devices has developed for containment and support of beverage containers in automotive vehicles. My invention provides a new and novel member of this class of holders.
Holders for support of beverage containers in vehicles must generally be supported on the vehicle structure so that they maintain positional stability when the various forces generated by normal vehicular activity are applied to the holders and their fluidic contents. This requires firstly, that the holder itself must be positionally maintained on some part of the interior surface of a vehicle, preferably in a releasable fashion, and secondly, that a beverage container that is supported must be positionally maintained in the holder in a releasable but yet secure fashion to prevent container motion or spillage of contents. Additionally, to have any substantial utility, such a holder must be adaptable to hold beverage containers of various sizes and shapes that are commonly available in the present day marketplace. Prior art devices have not well addressed or solved these problems which are resolved in a new and novel fashion by my holder.
To maintain a beverage container in s secure fashion, my holder provides a flat base supporting two spacedly adjacent upstanding support columns, each carrying an elongate, flexible band that encircles more than half of a beverage container so that the outer ends of both bands may be releasably joined to each other by releasable fasteners to secure a container in the holder. This structure allows adjustment for use with containers of different size and differently configured pheripheries, while yet maintaining such containers in a secure fashion. The structure also allows the encircling arms to be positioned at a substantial height above the base and to have a substantial vertical extent, even as great as that of a beverage container to be held, so as to better and more certainly support a container against tipping forces and lessen sloshing motion of liquid beverages in a container which might cause spillage and enhance tipping. With this arm structure, its size may be once adjusted for a particular beverage container and that container thereafter removed from and placed within my holder without further adjustment. If desired, the inner surface of the holding arms may carry adhesive elements to further enhance the gripping action of the support arms on beverage containers.
To provide positional maintenance on a vehicle surface, the bottom of my holder provides adhesive fasteners which may be attached to solid rigid surfaces of a vehicle such as dashboard or center console, and also a hook structure to maintain the holder on a carpeted surface. The hook structure comprises a plurality of radially arrayed hooks, each elastically fastened in its inner portion but extendible from the base to fasten into the nap of a carpeted surface adjacent the base periphery. This structure is distinguishable from prior hook type fastening structures by reason of the symmetrical hook array which, when combined with symmetrical biasing forces, tends to positionally maintain the holder over a particular area to provide more and better positional security than non-symmetrical hook fastening systems.
My invention is further distinguished from prior holders by reason of the combination of two position maintaining systems that adapt the holder for selective use on either a smooth rigid support or a carpet nap.
To alleviate the problems of supporting both cylindrical containers and also cup-like containers that have a handle protuberance extending normally from their surface, my holder provides a construction that defines a vertically orientated slot between the vertically extending support columns. This construction allows protuberances such as a cup handle to be carried within the slot while the remaining cylindrical portion of the beverage holder is supported in the fashion described to maintain a handled container in as secure a fashion as a cylindrical container. The particular structure of the upstanding support columns allows formation of each column, which is a mirror image of the other, in a separate releasably attachable fashion so as to make the entire holder readily formable by present day plastic molding processes without requiring complete and expensive one-piece molds, while yet providing the durability, strength and rigidity of a device formed as a unitary structure.
My invention resides not in anyone of these features per se, but rather in the synergistic combination of all of the structures of my holder that necessarily give rise to the functions flowing therefrom as herein specified and claimed.